1918 Annals - Out on the Prairie

By W. B. Elliott

During a week of September in 1919 the Swedish Methodist church of Center
Prairie of this county celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the dedication
of its edifice. The celebration was very well attended at each meeting and a
fine time was enjoyed by all. The former ministers who were present during
the services were Rev. Bendix, of Chicago; Rev. H. W. Willing, of Cleveland,
Ohio; Rev. N. W. Bard, of McKeesport, Pa.; Rev. A. J. Strandell, of Donovan;
Mr. and Mrs. John P. Miller, of Chicago.

One of the features was the following interesting historical address by W.
B. Elliott.

When the first people came to Center Prairie, the land was densely covered
with prairie grass and blue stem which grew in many places as high almost as
a man's head when on a horse. This had been going on for ages so that the
soil was covered and filled with vegetable matter and there were no ditches
and small water courses to carry off the water as now and the land was very
wet and untillable, there being many large ponds which are still remembered
by people now living. The result was that Center Prairie was not the first
part of Victoria township to be settled up. The first settlers who came
settled in the timber surrounding the prairie They did this far many
reasons. They had generally come from the hilly regions of New England
states and New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio and had been used to timber as
wind breaks. In fact on the prairie where the sweep of the wind was
unhindered with the buildings that they were able to put up in those days,
man and beast would surely have frozen to death. The writer of this article
in his youth had the experience when sleeping in the loft of a log house of
awakening in the morning with a thick covering of snow upon the bed covers
and which had come in between the logs where the chinks had fallen out and
under the clapboards. They did not know they could dig wells here in those
days, and so the first settlers settled near springs. Neither did they know
that the land was underlaid with coal and so they burned wood and had to be
near it, for the fire-places with which they used to heat their homes and
cook their simple food, took lots of fuel. All their building material must
be near at hand in growing timber. It was the only material they had to
fence with also.

The Prairie Fire

It was very dangerous to live on the prairie on account of the frequent
prairie fires. I very well remember hearing my father tell how, when he was
a small boy, his father, Thomas Elliott, tried to plow around the house and
stable and also burn the grass for a distance about the building which was
known as back firing. When he had seen a fire in the distance he told how
the onrush of the wall of flame was so great that it made all his efforts
unavailing and jumped to the house and stable so that grandfather had
difficulty in saving even his family and beasts. Being burned out in those
days was no funny experience, with nothing to rebuild with except growing
trees, and with no neighbors for miles around and winter coming on, for
these terrible fires always came near winter when the grass had died and was
dry. On this occasion my grandfather cut poles and built two pens, one
inside the other while grandmother gathered leaves and filled the space
between them and in this they lived until they could erect a log cabin.

Were Hardy Pioneers

The early settlers who thus settled in the timber around Center Prairie and
who later themselves or their descendants helped to make Center Prairie what
it is were hardy pioneers, who came overland with their families in wagons
from the older states. I shall only attempt to enumerate a few.

Thomas Elliott first settled in Persifer township in 1837 where the writer's
father. Burgess Elliott, was born. He moved later to Victoria township near
the present home of James Cook and it was while he was living here that he
undertook and got out and delivered on the ground the long hewn timbers for
the Methodist church which was built in Victoria in 1854. It was here he
lived when he had a contract to deliver railroad ties between Altona and
Galva for the C. B. and Q. R. R.

The Wilburs settled just west of Delbert Patty's place in the thirty's and a
daughter, Phoebe, married Peter Sornberger and they were the first couple
married in Victoria township in 1838, on Easter Sunday.

Luther Rice settled in the timber about two miles south from the Center
Prairie church, about 1842, and was the progenetor of a numerous family,
among whom was Foster Rice, who built a log house where Charley Larson now
lives about 1857, and Cyrus Rice, who built the Robert Young house in 1857,
where J. L. Huber now lives, which was another of the first frame houses on
Center Prairie. Alvin Rice still owns a part of his grandfather's land.
Perhaps the earliest settler on Center Prairie proper was Thomas G. Stuart,
who patented the N. E. Quarter of Section 27 in 1838, which old patent the
writer recently saw at the Exchange Bank at Victoria.

Burned To Death

He died about 1845 and left his estate by will to his wife, Catherine. In
1850 Catherine burned a brush pile near the house to prepare ground to sow
tobacco seed and the house caught fire and Mrs. Stuart was burned until she
died trying to save money in the house and was buried just west of the creek
on the S. E. Quarter of the old homestead. She was the mother of four boys:
Tom, who kept the homestead; married Eliza Gladfelter, was crippled in the
war, died at the old home and was buried in Thomas' grave yard, now the
Center Prairie Cemetery. Elija, Peter, William and one girl, Katie, who
married Van Winkle and was the mother of Henry Van Winkle, who lived for
many years north of Four Corners.

Perhaps the next settler in line who settled on Center Prairie was Josiah
Patty and Beka Patty his wife, who built a log house on the southeast
quarter of Section 27, where Phillip Gibbs now lives, he having purchased
the land from Richard J. Barret in 1839. Mr. Gibbs still has the old patent.
Their children were James, William, Sarah, Nancy, Robert, George and Josiah.

John Arnold, a blacksmith, first came in Knox County and Victoria township
in 1836, but did not buy the old Arnold place where Gust Swanson now lives
until 1840. He did blacksmithing there until 1853, when he moved to
Victoria. John Arnold and his wife had ten children. In fact in those days
the hardy pioneer family that did not consist of ten was the exception and
not the rule. Thomas Elliott and his wife were the parents of fourteen
children.

Perhaps the first family who settled on the flat prairie to the north was
that of Thomas Durand, for whom Jonas Hedstrom, the tailor and preacher,
made a wedding suit, who owned the Conley place where Martin Gibbs
afterwards settled in 1850, and the two eighty-acre pieces that now belong
to Alex Ingles and Wm. England. This land he bought in 1841 and as there was
no timber near he fenced the half section with a sod fence, the remains of
which may still be seen after a lapse of nearly eighty years. He was the
grandfather of John McNaught and Mrs. Cornelius Stephenson of later times.
These were the N. W. Quarter Section 13 and the S. E. Quarter Section 12.

Arrival of Swedes

From this time on settlers came in increasing numbers. Especially about 1850
the Swedes began to arrive in large numbers. Among the early settlers were
J. L. Jarnagin, 1845; Dalgren, 1846; Adolphus Anderson, 1847, and John
Saline, 1854. Then came in 1855 Peter Anderson, Lars Ostrom, John Chalman,
Sam Coleman; in 1857, Peter Skoglund, step-father to Mrs. Catherine Larson,
who is still with us, and Sievert Larson, to be quickly followed by Noah
Swickard, Lars Johnson, William Hammerlund, John P. Anderson, father of
Frank Anderson, who still lives on the old homestead, and who shipped the
first car load of frozen beef to Chicago and the man who invented the
refrigerator cars that make it possible to ship fresh meat almost all over
the world, as also Eli and Shid Johnson, Theodore Hammond, Joseph Cain,
James Thomas, Jonas Olson and many others.

Poor Facilities

These were a hardy race who willingly bore the hardships of a pioneer life
and bravely withstood the rigorous winters of the bleak and open prairies
for the sake of founding their new homes and establishing their families in
a new country. They early felt the need of education, as most of them had
had very limited opportunities for securing an education, so that almost
with their coming they set up log school houses, covered with clapboards and
floored with puncheon, which was poles split and the split side hewn and
laid up as a floor. There was a fireplace in one end of the room and seats
around the wall, made of slabs or split logs with four sticks in for legs
upon which the children sat with their feet dangling from the floor as they
studied the old Webster's spelling book, before the time of the far-famed
McGuffey's speller. It was in such an institution of learning that Burgess
Elliott, who was born in Knox county in 1837, as well as others of that
time, secured the rudiments of an education. Not long after the first
settlers came here. Old Salem, which was started in 1836, became too crowded
and the settlers were so far away that they built a small square house on
the corner near Tom Stuart's.

William Robinson, a cousin of John K. Robinson, was one of the early
teacher's here. This school house soon became too small and it was proposed
to build a new one and there was great rivalry as to where it should be
built, but as this was near where Salem school now is, and most of the
patrons lived east on the prairie, it was finally determined to put it where
it now stands, and so the school house was built here in 1856. The sawed
lumber was hauled overland from Rock Island and Peoria and the framing
timber was got out by John Saline and Charles Appell. John Saline did the
the building of it. There was much discussion as to what it should be
called. Some wanted to call it Stuart's Prairie and others Anderson's
Prairie, but a compromise was made and it was named Center Prairie and
Center Prairie it still is. The first teacher was one John Fleeharty, from
Galesburg, who taught in 1856. The next winter, John Van Buren, a brother of
George Van Buren, who still lives in Victoria, taught, and 'tis said of him
to this day that he was one of the best teachers Center Prairie ever had.
The next year, 1858, Miss Mary Garrett, a daughter of old Captain Garrett,
who later became Mrs. Mcllravy, and still lives in Victoria, taught the
school, as she did for several terms thereafter. She, like all teachers of
that day, boarded at Thomas Elliott's, and with other families who had
children.

The Big Storm

She was staying a week at Moody Robinson's when they had the big storm. May
14, 1858, about five o'clock in the afternoon. It came from the north and
blew Robinson's new frame house off the foundation and lodged it against the
well. It lifted the roof off of Foster Rice's house and blew a log out over
the door so that Mrs. Rice had to put a blanket over Foster, who was holding
the door to keep him from drowning. It blew the windows out of Peter
Anderson's house; in fact, the double log house of Thomas Elliott, made of
the logs of Old Salem school house, was the only one in all this region that
withstood the storm and all the neighbors stayed that night at Thomas
Elliott's as it was the only dry place in the neighborhood. They lay about
two deep all over the floor and 'tis said that none who were old enough to
remember ever forgot that storm. Mrs. Robinson's geese were blown away till
she never found them. Wagons were picked up and carried to the creek and
washed away. Noah Swickard's new frame house, where Alvira Johnson now
lives, was blown off the foundation, and at Rochester a house was blown in
the river and carried away. The young men of the neighborhood went the next
day to Walnut creek and swam around in the tops of the trees among the limbs
which were twenty or thirty feet from the ground when the waters receded.

To these schools came the boys and girls that were to make this wilderness a
teeming land of plenty. Such men as young Arnold, son of John Arnold, who
afterwards became a notable lawyer of Peoria, and Jonas Olson, the crippled
orphan boy who afterwards became Galva's most famous attorney and member of
the Illinois Legislature and above all a lifelong friend of all who knew
him. 'Tis said that although he had to walk two miles to school with a
crutch, he was one of the most happy pupils, as well as one of the most
industrious. It is handed down in school lore that he was a mischievous boy
and while studying the old M. C. Guffey's spelling book one day he ran onto
what he thought was a bad word and spelled it in a loud whisper so that the
whole school could hear, d-a-m dam, n-a na, t-i-o-n shun, damnation, and he
still asserts that what the teacher, Mary Garrett gave him, fitted the word.
At these school houses were held many famous exhibitions, singing schools
and spelling schools. Thomas Stuart who was said to be a very poor reader
was the most famous speller of all this region, always standing up till all
the teachers even were spelled down.

Center of Patriotism

So it was at this school house that the patriots of '61 met to encourage the
boys to enlist in their country's cause. One of the most famous songs and
one that always aroused the boys to the highest pitch of enthusiasm and
which fitted the great leader, Abraham Lincoln, was "We are Coming, Father
Abraham, Fifty Thousand Strong."

Center Prairie and the immediate neighborhood did not lack any in
patriotism, as evidenced by the list of boys who wore the blue. Among them
were August Carlson, Robert Young, Tom Stuart, Oliver Willy, Bill Larson,
George Elliott, George Newberg, Adolphus Anderson, John P. Anderson,
Nehemiah Coleman, Aaron Bothwell, Sam Cain, Jimmy Topp, Jonas Empstrom, Lee
Shannon, Bill Thomas, Jonas Johnson, John Case, James Alderman, John Labar,
Noah Swickard, James Jamigan, Spencer Jarnagin, John P. Peterson, Ward Todd,
Wm. Linday and Nat White. Of these famous sons of Center Prairie and
surrounding territory who fought in the army blue, only three, George
Newberg, August Carlton and George Elliott are now living.

In the World War

A history of the patriotic activities would be incomplete in this year of
grace did it not include a list of the boys of the World War who wore the
khaki of the army and the blue of the U. S. navy. The honor roll that stands
out in front of this church contains a list of men, who risked their lives
that democracy might live. They are:

The Religious Side

The early settlers were not satisfied to rest at mere physical and
intellectual betterment, but above all they were religious. At first they
met at the homes to hold worship and as soon as school houses were built
they took the place of churches until churches could be built, so that when
old Salem school house was built they began to hold meetings there and camp
meetings in the grove, just north, and later the Swedish people held camp
meetings on the opposite side of the hollow from the American. Then when the
Center Prairie school house was built they used it for a meeting house, both
the Swedes and the English speaking people. Louisa Anderson, now Mrs.
William Seward, tells me that she was baptized at the school house. Many of
the inhabitants of the prairie had helped to build both Methodist churches
in Victoria, but were so far away and had only oxen to drive, that they
early began to feel the need of a church on Center Prairie and when Peter
Newberg and Exstrand started the movement to build a church on Center
Prairie they found willing hearts and hands to help. "Exstrand was a very
bright young man," says Jonas Olson. "Perhaps I am partial to him because he
was a cripple like myself. He walked with a crutch." They were ably assisted
by the English people and Swedes alike, one of the most earnest workers
being Peter Skoglund. The land where the church now stands was purchased by
Adolphus Anderson in 1855 and he broke it up. In 1857 he sold it to Lars
Johnson and he in turn sold it to Wm. Hammerlund in 1858.

For a consideration of fifty dollars, Hammerlund sold a piece of land eight
and one-half rods north and south and seven rods east and west to the
Swedish Methodist Episcopal church of the United States to be for and under
the control of the Swedish Methodist church in Victoria township, Knox
county, Illinois. The money to build it was contributed by popular
subscription. Many volunteered to haul a load of lumber back from Galva when
they went up with grain and produce. The mason work was done by Swenson from
Knoxville and the carpenter work was done by Peterson Herdine, who lived in
Galva for so many years. But the building of this church in 1869 was not
without some opposition. Peter Chalman, who had formerly been presiding
elder of the Swedish M. E. church of this district, assisted by John Wilson,
a cabinet maker, and full of gab, as Andrew Hartman expresses it, and who
came to be a real free shouting Methodist and who, wearing no suspenders, in
the heat of his discourse, is said to have shed his raiment, organized about
three quarters of a mile south of the school house a Free Methodist church.
The money was raised by popular subscription, but not enough was raised to
pay the debt and so the trustees paid the debt and tore down the church
after some fifteen or twenty years. In this church the English Sunday school
was held for many years. Thus Center Prairie has been supplied since a very
early day with ample church facilities and I hope that future historians of
the county will take cognizance of this fact in writing the early church
history of Knox county.

The Cemetery

One of the things neglected here, as in all newly settled districts, was the
early setting apart of a plot of ground for a public cemetery. The early
settlers buried on their own premises. The Tabors buried on what is now the
John Saline place, the Stuarts on the Stuart place, the Arnolds on the
Arnold place, the Cliffords on the Dr. Craven's place where old "Bobby"
Armstrong's first wife, who was a Clifford, is buried. It was not until
about 1858 that the family of Jim Thomas who owned the farm where the Center
Prairie cemetery is located, lost several children with diphtheria and
buried them there and when he sold the place to Olof Bowman he reserved the
present plot for a burial ground and later, at the suggestion of William
Messmore, deeded it to Knox county for a public cemetery. Center Prairie
owes a debt of gratitude to John Thomas for this generous gift and can best
repay it by seeing that it is always properly kept up. The present neat
appearance is due largely to the good work of William England, Charley
Larson and Victor Larson, who were selected by their neighbors to solicit
funds and have it taken care of.

As To Utensils

The early settlers had very few of the comforts of life as we view them now.
There were few simple cooking utensils. The writer has an old kettle that
his grandmother has baked many a corn pone in by placing coals under the
kettle on the hearth of the fire place and putting coals on top. All the
clothes were made of wool or flax raised in the neighborhood and spun and
woven into cloth. Much of the caiTDet woven in this locality by Aunt
Margaret Larson, Adolphus Anderson's first wife, was made on the old loom of
Mrs. Thomas Elliott, that she used to weave the woolen and Lindsey-Woolsey
out of which she made the clothes and blankets to keep her family warm. It
is only within the last few years that this loom has been destroyed.

Practically all this whole prairie was broken up with oxen. Burgess Elliott,
Lars Ostrom, Martin England and Adolphus Anderson did much of this work. For
this work they used a 28 or 32 inch breaking plow drawn by from four to six
yoke of oxen. Some of the back furrows can still be see on the Martin
England farm where Mr. England now lives.

At first the ground was very wet but within a few years a ditching machine
which pressed a round hole about three feet under the ground and about the
size of a six inch tile was used. This took the place of tile which came
later and did very well in an early day, but the hole was gradually enlarged
by the water until the top caved in and started large ditches. Well does the
writer remember when his folks moved south of the school house, of crawling,
as a boy, for rods in these blind ditches as they were called. As people in
the present day go to tractor demonstrations, so in those days would the
people come long distances to see new and improved machinery.

The sickle and scythe were not much used here to cut grain, but the cradle
was although it was soon succeeded by the McCormick reaper on which one man
sat and drove and another stood and raked the grain off in sheaves for the
binders to gather up and bind. The first self-raking reaper used here was
owned by Adolphus Anderson and his nephew, Frank Anderson, tells of its
first use. It was used a quarter of a mile north of where the church now is
about 1857 to cut wheat. They used oxen on the tongue and horses in the
lead. Frank says he rode the horses. Among the men binding were J. K.
Robinson and Manford Mosher. Frank says they had molasses, ginger and water
in a pail and a long black bottle. Charles Clark and many others came to see
the new reaper work. Robinson says Frank carried the water and bottle and
took toll for carrying it to the others. Thus does the historian find
himself in a maze of uncertainty as to the true facts.

In those early days all the corn ground had to be marked out both ways and
planted by hand. The tools they used to tend it with were the hoe, single
shovel, double shovel and bar share plow. It would look funny nowadays to
see one plowing corn with oxen as Ben Nelson did about 1860 on the place
where Fred Holstrum now lives.

Old Conveyances

Your historian has had much pleasure looking over the old conveyances of the
Patty place, the Arnold, the Stuart, the Peter Anderson, Louis Osstrum, Eli
Johnson and others. He has seen more patents by the government to land in
the last week than in his whole life time before. Cliff Gibbs has the
original patent to Tom Stuart from the government signed with the
president's name. That is what is known as a sheepskin. Besides a patent
which is in effect a government deed, there were issued to the soldiers of
1776 and 1812 land warrants. This was a privilege to locate a
quarter-section of land in this military district, enter the land at the
land office, surrender the warrant and get a deed in the form of a patent.
Eric Ostrom has such a patent issued in 1817 to Cornelius Riorden, sergeant
in Nelson's company of infantry of the U. S. after he had deposited a land
warrant in the land office that was issued on the soldier's bounty land of
the territory of Illinois in 1817. On the same day Riorden deeded the land
to Alexander Cooper and the deed is written on the back of the patent. It is
sure a curious document. In those days land titles were not so carefully
recorded and there was more or less counterfeiting of land transfers and the
country was infested with swindlers known as land sharps. It is said that
Pete Skoglund paid for his land two or three times rather than go to law
about the title.

But we must not think that all the life of these ancestors of ours was
bereft of enjoyment. They lived in a land of milk and honey and had much to
be thankful for. One of these was a famous peach orchard owned by Tom
Stuart. They were real peaches, says Jonas Olson, and I can readily believe
him for you can always trust a boy to know where there's a watermelon patch
or a real peach orchard. With an ancestry such as this it behooves us, their
descendants, to follow the advice of the poet who says:

"Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate,
Still achieving and pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait."

Extracted 15 Dec 2017 by Norma Hass from Annals of Knox County:
Commemorating Centennial of Admission of Illinois as a State of the
Union in 1818, published in 1921 by the Centennial Historical Association,
Knox County, Illinois, The Board of Supervisors, pages 212-221.